The present invention relates in general to a method of configuring a roll of carpet or similar material so that it will be more easily transportable. More specifically, it is directed to a method of bending a roll of carpet upon itself to reduce its overall length by one-half.
Rolls of carpet and like materials come in extended lengths and are then cut to size, often at the site of installation where they are to be laid. Carpet installers, therefore, must transport heavy rolls, usually twelve feet in length, to a job site, for example, an office where the carpet is to be laid. When carpet is to be installed in an office at an upper floor of a building, the problem of transporting the carpet to the office is apparent, and the installer is left with the choice of carrying a 100-lb. roll of carpet up, say 30 floors of stairwell, or trying to cram a 12-foot long roll into a freight elevator that has a maximum usable dimension of eight feet.
It will be apparent that the highly preferred alternative of choice is to bend or "break" the carpet roll at a location proximate to the center of its longitudinal axis. If this can be done, the effective length of the roll can be reduced by almost one-half, and the length of the roll will have been reduced to six feet, which is well within the dimensions of almost any freight or even passenger elevator. However, the amount of strength required to even start to cause a carpet roll to bend along its longitudinal axis is considerable, often beyond the capacity of a pair of installers. When a single installer is transporting a roll, or even a fraction of a roll of carpet to a job, it is simply impossible for him to cause the carpet to break and then, while holding one or both ends of the carpet roll in juxtaposed position, to secure those ends in a location so that they are adjacent to each other.
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to provide a method of configuring a roll of carpet so that it may be transported by a single individual to the site at which it is to be laid using an elevator or other confined area.
It is a more specific object of our invention to provide a method of causing a roll of carpet to bend back upon itself to a position in which the two ends of the roll are brought into a position in which they are closely spaced from each other, thereby greatly reducing the linear length dimension of the roll so that it may more easily be accommodated in an elevator or other confined area.